The present invention relates to diesel engine fuel injectors of the type wherein a solenoid valve controls the pressure in a chamber acting on a needle injection valve.
In these types of injectors, the control valve acts as a normally closed valve in a control chamber to separate fuel in a needle control chamber and associated passages at high pressure from a region of low pressure. A spring or the like on the solenoid armature or stem, urges a shaped pintle or the like against a commensurately shaped control chamber seat. The injection event is initiated by energizing the solenoid, which lifts the control valve off its seat, thereby connecting the high pressure fuel in the needle control chamber and passage to the low pressure region or sump and in a known manner lifts the injection needle off its seat at the bottom of the injector body. The lifting needle exposes injection orifices at the tip of the body to high pressure fuel, and thereby starts the injection event.
If changes occur in the control valve, such as valve stroke change or seat leakage, fuel delivery to the engine will change. Changes in fuel delivery result in changes to engine power and exhaust. This undesirable effect can cause the engine to become overloaded by excess fuel and out of compliance with emission regulations. All injector control valve seats will exhibit some wear over the life of the injector. The control valve seat is exposed to high velocity fluid and high contact stresses when the control valve shuts against the control valve seat.
To operate at very high injection pressures associated with common rail fuel systems, the pintle of the injector control valve must be pushed into its seat by a high enough spring load to assure that it seals. Such spring load accelerates the control valve into the seat. The resulting contact stresses can be very high when the valve closes onto the seat. Higher injector seat stresses produce accelerated wear, resulting in increased seat leakage which eventually requires replacement of the entire injector.
High injector pressures also increase the risk of cavitation damage to the valve seat and in other fluid passages of the injector upstream of the control seat. Rapid reduction of upstream fluid pressure occurs when the control valve opens, producing bubbles. Upon re-pressurization after the control valve closes, such bubbles collapse. Collapsing bubbles focus streams of fuel onto the metal surfaces in the injector with enough energy to implode on the metal surface, causing damage.
The present invention addresses the problem of cavitation at high fuel injection pressure.